THE EDITOR, Sir:
I AM very saddened to hear of the tragic death of Sammy, the monkey that escaped from the Hope Zoo recently. I am even more saddened by the fact that they are citing his escape and resulting death as a human error.
I think the error began long before his cage was left open. We as human beings erred in believing that it was OK to cage another animal. When I bring up this subject with some of my friends, they laugh and say, yes yes monkeys are smarter than us right? I am not saying that animals are smarter than us, I am just simply saying that we underestimate them. How dare we think we have the right to capture and lock up innocent animals for so many years.
Poor Sammy, locked up for over 20 years, seemed to have lost the ability to defend himself and much of his survival instincts such that he could not survive in the open for more than a few days.
And after all of that all the Hope Zoo personnel can think about is finding other animals to cage 'to make their zoo more attractive.' I think it's a shame, spending millions to destroy the lives of these animals.
We need to look into ourselves, suppose the movie Planet of the Apes was to some day ring true, would we like it if we were kept in cages so that the 'ape' children could see what a human looks like? Is JSPCA asleep?
I am etc.,
S. SHAW
stephishaw@yahoo.com
Hope Pastures
Kingston 6
Via Go-Jamaica
